If you could only have one barrel?

N

Nickel Plated

New member
So a little spin on the "If you could only have one gun" question we see so often.

You have ONLY a pump shotgun, it's ONLY 12ga, and you can have ONLY 1 barrel for it, but as many chokes as you want.

What do you think is the best all around barrel? A must have essentially? From home defense, to hunting for survival, to screwin' around at the range.

I figure a 26" VR field barrel. Long enought o be a decent bird gun for gettin food, good for home defense as long as you just hunker down in one area and don't go playing tactical ninja. And plenty fun at the range shooting clays or neutralizing rabid cinderblocks with slugs. And pretty decent for most competitive shooting.
 
But all my shotguns have two barrels. The over one, and the under one.

ETA: I guess if you make me pick, I'll take the over one, it's the one with the sight beads on it.
 
28" is optimal to me ....for swing and balance in a pump .../ 30" in most pump guns gets a little nose heavy / 26" is too short...( for me ).
 
Usually when I reach for a shotgun it is either a
20Ga Beretta 391 with a 26" barrel,
or a 12Ga Remington 1100 with a 26" barrel
on occasion if I am headed into the thick stuff I will grab a 20Ga Beretta 390 with a 24" barrel.
I have more than one barrel for the 1100, but the 26" rarely comes off.
 
Depending on the overall length of the gun, 24" or 26" on a repeater, 28" on a double My 24" Benelli is just 1" shorter overall than the 26" Remingtons I own. Less than 24" is handy for turkey, deer or HD uses, but harder to use for moving targets. Longer than 26" works great for longish shots at moving targets, but is a handicap in thick stuff.

I use the 26" guns the most as a hunter. The way I see it a longer barrel would give me a slight edge on longer, lower percentage shots I'll probably miss anyway. The quicker handling shorter barrels improve my odds on the closer, quick shots I'm more likely to get and hit. I've just learned to recognize my limitations and I don't take low percentage shots.
 
For many years the only shotgun I owned was an 870 with an 18.5 inch barrel (and screw in chokes)

I have hunted every thing from starlings to ducks to geese to deer with that gun.

so I would go 18.5 inches and then pick chokes to fit the situation.
 
The OPs question is semi-moot. With the wide variety of screw-in available these days, a short barrel can be extended to a long one.

Merry Christmas to one and all!
 
I use one barrel in a gas gun and I like mine to be 30" or longer - with a LM choke I can do just about anything I need it to do.........
 
28" on my 1100s, standard and Magnum, and 30" Light Contour on my Wingmaster Magnum. Both with choke tubes of course. I have other barrels but they are just gathering dust.
 
18.5" cylinder bore

I don't hunt, nor do I shoot skeet, trap or sporting clays, so I have no need for anything else.
 
Pheasants are few and far between around here anymore and I never cared much for duck and/or goose either. So I use shotguns for small game, varmints, predators and deer. My light and handy Win. 1300 with it's 22" vent rib, "Winchoke" barrel (fiber optic bead) does everything I need and then some.
 
18.5

Shotguns mean turkeys hunting to me, That means I am in the middle of a bush or a blind. A short barrel is great. Modern powders don't need the length to burn and chokes and heavier than lead shot gives me awesome patterns.
Mine is the 835 so I can take advantage of the extra sized bore.
 
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